Bridge to hold closed-door meeting on Sunday; Prgomet says will attend it

The coalition of independent slates Bridge has given up on its plan to hold a closed-door meeting at Plitvice on Saturday due to bad weather conditions, and whether it will meet in Zagreb on Sunday or just hold a phone conference is yet to be decided, Bridge's media coordinator Nikola Grmoja confirmed to Hina, adding that negotiations with the Croatia Is Growing coalition and the Patriotic Coalition should be completed by Wednesday.

Bridge has been negotiating the formation of a parliamentary majority and a new government with the Social Democratic Party (SDP)-led Croatia Is Growing coalition and the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ)-led Patriotic Coalition after in the November 8 parliamentary election it won 19 seats in the 151-seat parliament, an unexpectedly high number of seats. Without it, neither of the two major coalitions can form a parliamentary majority. The SDP-led coalition won 56 seats and the HDZ-led coalition 59.

"We have to reach agreement on the continuation of negotiations with the two coalitions on specific areas and the negotiations should be completed by Wednesday. Since both sides have so far accepted all of our demands... we will request their written positions on all of our platform measures, and then we will see if they agree in principle or really. Of course, a final agreement will have to be signed later, but before that we want them to submit their written positions on the negotiated topics," said Grmoja.

The topics that remain to be discussed are the political system, election legislation, the fiscal policy and possibly the monetary policy, however, a final agreement on those topics and the extent to which they will be negotiated will be reached by Bridge members on Sunday, said Grmoja.

Asked about their possible participation in the government, Grmoja repeated that no political negotiations on that had been conducted yet.

Meanwhile Drago Prgomet, whom Bridge recently expelled after the release of footage showing his secret meeting with Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, said that he would attend Sunday's meeting.

"I will attend, at the invitation of my colleagues, elected MPs, tomorrow's joint meeting of the Bridge political platform. Reforms and the change of political elites and their methods of running the country are the priority of the meeting and the basis for negotiations," Prgomet said on his Facebook profile on Saturday.

Bidge leader Bozo Petrov was unavailable for a comment on Prgomet's announcement while Grmoja said that Bridge "will soon issue a statement."

Beirut (dpa) - Syrian government forces and their allies advanced deeper into the shrinking rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo on Wednesday, seizing the Old City, while demanding the armed opposition groups leave the area.